(from wikipedia.com)
The Bee Gees' career record sales total more than 220 million ranking them among the best-selling music artists of all time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; the presenter of the award to "Britain's first family of harmony" was Brian Wilson, historical leader of the Beach Boys, a "family act" also featuring three harmonising brothers. The Bee Gees' Hall of Fame citation says "Only Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees."
Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music artist, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Late in his career, Cash covered songs by several rock artists.
Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice; for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor; for providing free concerts inside prison walls; and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues."
Cash, a troubled but devout Christian,has been characterized as a "lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges." A Biblical scholar, he penned a Christian novel titled Man in White, and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament. Even so, Cash declared that he was "the biggest sinner of them all", and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man. Accordingly, Cash is said to have "contained multitudes", and has been deemed "the philosopher-prince of American country music".
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Charisma must have run in Jeff and Jay's family, as Jay possessed possibly even more of it than his younger, drummer brother. Jay somehow was more in control of the charisma with a certain maturity added to it, along with additional self-confidence that may have been attributable to his age or possibly to a more balanced chemical composition. Similar as they would appear to be from my description here, they were actually quite different from each other in reality. But the musical combination radically changed the performances of Ful Treatment much for the better. Jay rocked. [And still does, by the way.] And following his lead, Ful Treatment rocked as well, at least on some of our repertoire, which at the time included 'You Really Got Me', 'Wild Thing', 'Needles and Pins' 'Twist and Shout', 'Hello It's Me' and 'Heat Wave'
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Anyone who was into popular music in the 1970s is aware of the groups, bands and artists who were affected by country and/or southern influences: the Eagles; Poco; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Sacco and Vanzetti-as the Wonderful WINO DJ played by George Carlin would say), the Band; the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; the Amazing Rhythm Aces; the Charlie Daniels Band; Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and many others. Funny, I can now appreciate much of the music by all these bands, but like the early jazz critics who said that what Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were playing was NOISE, I was a country purist. I loved my Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Roy Clark, George Jones, Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash unadulterated. I didn't want any 'rock' mixed in with my pure, precious country music. Of course, country influenced rock, Cajun funk and swamp was into country, rock was into New Orleans. . . well you get the picture. And although maybe I just wasn't sophisticated enough to 'get it' at the time, I sure do get it now. And I love it.
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. . . Way before I discovered the joys of jazz/rock fusion, my musical tastes took a turn that was probably pretty natural considering that the accordion pretty much started it all. My friend Joe - he of the red American Flyer and the hill at the elementary school in my neighborhood where we would sit (yes, on our bicycles) and discuss everything from soup to nuts and solve the problems of the world. . . well, at least our little world - had pretty eclectic tastes and what just the kind of personality I needed to gravitate toward at that time in my life. One of those tastes that rubbed off onto me was for a folk trio who had already been making music successfully for a number of years and of whom I knew some (Puff the Magic Dragon was a childhood anthem), Peter, Paul and Mary. And as is the case with much music that I loved in my early days, I couldn't then explain to you what attracted me to it, although now you would be sorry if you asked me to explain, I was enthralled by the simplicity, the intertwining harmonies and the contrast of the three voices when Peter, Paul and Mary performed.
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. . .my good friend Doug Alan Wilcox about the youth quotient in the singer-songwriter genre last night and hearing a radio program on NPR about late 50s early 60s rock music sparked some thinking. Fortunately, the sparks were small and the resulting smoke was minimal, as I was driving home from Doug's CD release party at the Frederick Coffee Company where a wonderful, appreciative crowd gathered to celebrate, and where I believe I may have been the one in the room having the most fun, although it appeared that Doug was not far behind me in that respect. But back to the radio show, Bobby Rydell was being interviewed, he still performs BTW, and he and the host of the program were discussing how rock'n roll from that era, and the lifestyle of the preponderance of the consumer market for rock, were so very innocent and carefree. Bobby mentioned going to WIldwood, NJ as a teenager and bodysurfing, dancing, gathering on the beach and doing all those things that teenagers do. He also mentioned the fact that there was no Vietnam (War), drugs (not a huge concern in his crowd) and so many of the other issues that soon affected the innocence of teenagers. Youth for him, and hopefully for most of us, was an innocent time with very few worries or responsibilities.
And today, even though youth is relatively innocent, how can young people not be confronted at certain times by talk of the bad economy, unemployment, vicious politicians, terrorism, wars in far away Middle-Eastern locations, nuclear issues, freedom fighters and rebels. . . the list goes on. In other words, no matter how innocent youth is today, it cannot possibly be as innocent as it was for Bobby Rydell, the youth of his day, and even me (I lagged behind Bobby by some years). So the singer-songwriter of the (relatively) new millennium is a different animal than the singer-songwriter of times gone by. (Actually, singers and songwriters were separate entities in Bobby's day, but that's a whole different topic.) I'm not longing for the good ole days, mind you, I think we are are evolving and that's a GOOD thing. But this is merely a reflection. As a matter of fact, who can complain about the calibur of music that is available to us thanks to the youth of today. . .
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I did become exposed to a gamut of music during my accordion education playing Polish folk music (but of course), American folk and pop music, tin pan alley standards, classical, English drinking songs and even rock and roll- envision that on the accordion. When you began accordion lessons at the Maryland Accordion Institute, you were issued a twelve bass piano accordion. What that is, is a small accordion with a 25-key piano keyboard on the right (from the performer's perspective) and twelve buttons on the left. The piano accordion is designed to be a complete musical ensemble. The right hand plays melody while the left plays bass notes and complete major chords on the first and second row of buttons respectively. Of course the bellows are between the two halves
After completing the basic course, I don't recall if that was measured in weeks or an instruction book, you were encouraged to purchase a full-size accordion which was casually called a "hundred and twenty bass" accordion, appropriately named for the one hundred and twenty buttons on the left side. The buttons are arranged in diagonal rows consisting of, in order from left to right, a 'counter bass' note (the third of the root bass note which is next to the right, major chord, minor chord, seventh chord and last, diminished chord. The keyboard on the right being larger, of course, has 41 keys.
So you see it is a complex instrument, mastery of which equips one very well with a fair amount of music theory knowledge. And you can see how the 120 bass instrument provides the player much more versatility and range in what can be played.
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